Chapter 13: Human Stages of a Dying Planet

IF the Canadian tar sands, one of the dirtest forms of oil, are developed, and there is every
reason to believe they will be, CO2 emmisions will sky rocket causing a runaway green-house effect and,
in which case,
our little blue planet will turn into a little orange planet, all but doomed.

There are seven emotional stages
most people will go through ad fully developing the fossel fuel resources.
Stage 1, "Business-as-usual", the stage in which many people are in now. In this stage our focus is on
our daily lives
and keeping the price of gas as low as possible.
Stage 2, "Denial-out-of-hand", we hear about global warming but it is disgarded out of hand as another
wacky science predition or
conspirspcy by scienctist to get funding, and most insist on a "drill-baby-drill" arrogent-macho
knee-jerk attitude.
Stage 3, "Dawning", as weather begins to get weird with places like Texas almost buring to the ground,
tornados coming
in batches of 100 in one day in the midwest, thoughts turn to maybe there is something to this.
Stage 4, "Fear" in this stage, it occurs to many that the weather is changing and getting warmer and
dryer.
and what can others do about it because food prices can dramatically increase as draught becomes more
common and
real fear sets in that this is very real.
Stage 5, "Anger", why did those oil and coal executives, tea-party right wingers, and FOX news people
lead us down
this path. Why did politicans why did we not heed the continual warning from the overwhelming scientific
community.
Stage 6, "Resignation", by now however it is too late to respond since the planet's CO2 level has gone
way beyond
the "point-of-no-return" so people give in to the inevitable and try to live out their life with as
little
as possible not telling their children that they effectively have no future.
Stage 7, "Death", the planet continues to heat to a point where no human life will be possible as Earth
becomes
more and more like Venus, a hot molten hell with surface temperatures about 400F.

Based on United Nations population forecasts, the world's population is now over
seven billion and growing.(The U.S. population is now over 312 million.)
A large percentage of the world's population is coming out of low-carbon-use poverty into the
high-use-carbon middle class. If we fail to act to reverse CO2 emmissions, the additional
global-warming stress caused by the increase of this green-house gas, will have a devastating
negative impact on the majority of species of this planet including our own as the consequences of
global warming continue to unfold.

For example, seventy percent of the population lives in the world’s tropics and major climate
changes would directly impact most of them. In one example, the National Academy of Sciences
published, in their August 10, 2010, edition, a
study
linking illegal immigration from Mexico to global warming. Arguing that as global warming
causes dryer Mexican climate, arid and unproductive farmlands result in many farmers, farm
workers, and support workers migrating North. In fact, for the last decade, Northern Mexico
has suffered a drought.

The sad irony is that many Republicans while not believing in global warming,
are calling for the most severe illegal immigration measures todate, however,
failing to take meaningful actions to stop global warming only encourages,
counter-productively, illegal immigration.